


Dazed and Complacent, She Follows Me Home At Night

by Aspera



Series: The Heart Is A Muscle [3]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, POV Feyre Archeron, Prequel, Sisters, also a pair of mercenaries because why not, the origin of the ash arrow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-19 02:15:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14864726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aspera/pseuds/Aspera
Summary: After a lean winter and a delayed spring, Feyre Archeron struggles to find a way to keep the promise she made to her dying mother.





	Dazed and Complacent, She Follows Me Home At Night

I avoid mirrors now.

                Not that we actually have one anymore. That was one of the first things to go – Mother always wanted quality, after all. What use do we have for a solid silver mirror and a golden boudoir set in our hovel? I would much rather be able to eat and keep a roof over our heads than hold on to trinkets.

                My sisters, however, do not agree. Elain was inconsolable and cried for days. Nesta just looked at me. She refused to speak to me for days.

                I avoid mirrors now. Mirrors and large pools of still water and glass when the sun shines (which thankfully is seldom enough at this time of year).

                The last of the money is gone. We have nothing left to sell. My father is refusing to leave the cottage. He’s refusing to do anything but whittle those stupid figurines. He wants me to take them into the town to sell them, and I’ve tried – I’ve tried, just to please him, but no one wants crude little wood figures for over their mantelpiece. There’s little enough money to spare, and our old friends are certainly loath to part with any of it.

                My father’s folly cost them money too. It didn’t ruin them, but they can’t stand to be within three feet of me when I show myself at market day.

                I’m starving – we all are.

                And I seem to be the only one who thinks that it’s a problem.

                The weather has started turning warmer, which means Elain has been outside in her flowerbeds all day. She leaves at dawn and doesn’t come back in until sundown, loudly demanding something to eat. The least that she could do would be to plant some vegetables or fruits or _something_ , so that the responsibility for figuring out a way to feed us didn’t fall exclusively to me.

                I’m sitting at our dining room table, the one thing from the manor house that we actually kept, picking at the peeling paint on the sides. Garish red roses that I painted last year, when my father still left the cottage. When he still made an effort. When there was enough game that even my inexpert shots and snares were full. When my sisters didn’t nag me constantly for more money so that they could by ribbons and lace and new cloaks and new boots, trying to impress the society that has completely forgotten us.

                “When are you going to find us something to eat, Feyre?” Nesta demands, pulling back a chair forcefully and throwing herself onto it. Her voice grates my nerves. “We ran out of that dried venison yesterday. Surely you know that we can’t survive on nothing for much longer – ”

                I cut her off by grabbing her elbow. “What is that around your neck, Nesta?” I ask, barely holding my temper in check.

                Nesta’s hand, pale and lovely, flies to her throat. She tucks the necklace back under her collar. “It’s nothing – it’s not for you. Mother wanted me to have it,” she sniffs. I’m up out of my seat and on her in seconds. “Stop, Feyre! It’s not yours! You don’t get to decide what I do with my own things!” Nesta tries to bat me away but being younger means that I’m faster and used to dodging her blows.

                I grab hold of her pendant and she immediately stills. “Feyre, no,” she whines. It’s a single pearl on a gold chain. The pearl is surrounded by tiny diamond chips. Father gave this to mother on their last wedding anniversary before the ships were lost.

                “How long have you been keeping this from me?” I ask through gritted teeth.

                A tear slips down my sister’s cheek and I want to slap her. “I had it when the creditors came and trashed the house,” she sobs. I’ve never seen Nesta cry for anything that mattered, so I’m not fooled.

                “Quit it,” I say sharply. She has the grace to comply. “Do you want to eat tonight?” Nesta opens her mouth to say something, but I squeeze her elbow harder. “If you want to eat tonight, and any other night after that, you will give me this pendant, Nesta Archeron.”

                Glaring, Nesta shakes herself out of my grip. She unhooks the clasp and slides the pendant off the chain. “So, you’re not going to take the chain from me, then? How generous.”

                This is meant to be a dig at me. I’m the one who killed our mother because I was the first to catch that fever. I’m the one that ruined our family because I’m the one that opened the door to the creditors that took our most valuable possessions. I’m the one ruining everything about our lives because I try my damnedest to keep us fed and clothed and it doesn’t even matter when it’s a lean year and there’s no game to be had.

                “Not yet, Nesta,” I say, pocketing the pendant.

                ~*~

                I get to the town square, and I realize that I’m not going to have much luck today as soon as I arrive. There’s a group of Children of the Blessed preaching, and it’s driven all the merchants back into their homes. There’s only one caravan left in the square, and it’s definitely not a jewels trader.

                He catches me staring and nudges the woman sitting next to him on the back of the caravan. She spares a brief glance at me, and then turns back to sharpening her daggers. “You going to keep staring, girlie, or are you going to come and give us a kiss?”

                I want to freeze. I want to turn and run back home, but I know that if I go back home without the gold that we need or something to eat, Nesta will tear me to shreds. I swallow the lump in my throat.

                “I’d like to make a trade for this,” I say quietly, pulling my mother’s pendant out of the pocket of my tattered pants. The mercenary’s grin splits his face, or rather it would if the scar at the corner of his mouth didn’t pull it into something resembling more of a grimace.

                “That’s a pretty little piece you’ve got there, girlie,” he says, fiddling with the pendant. “That’s a freshwater pearl from the continent, and those are diamonds from Prythian. You steal this?” The mercenary gives me an appraising look.

                “N-n-no,” I stammer. I try to snatch the pendant back from the mercenary and stumble to the ground when he lifts it over his head. “Please, it was my mother’s. Don’t – don’t take me to the magistrate.”

                The mercenary steps down from the caravan and offers me an arm. I take it reluctantly, wincing as I straighten. I’ve torn my knee open. “And what does your mother have to say about your trying to sell her baubles?” he asks, not unkindly.

“Not much that she can say,” I say archly. “She’s been dead for eight years. This is the last thing that we have left after all of my father’s ships were lost five years ago.”

The mercenary stills and his short-haired companion lifts her eyes from her whetstone. “You’re one of Archeron’s girls, aren’t you?” she asks, her voice just as raspy as the scrape of her dagger on the whetstone.

I nod. The mercenaries look at each other briefly. The woman tilts her head to the side, then glances over at me.

“I could give you all the gold that I have and it wouldn’t be enough to pay for this bauble, girlie,” the mercenary says. “But because your father has helped us in the past, we can take this bauble into the city for you, for a fee of course. Still, you’ll get a much better price. How does that sound?”

“When would you come back to give me the money?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. This is the way that my father used to conduct business: stern voice, crossed arms, blank face. Before, back when he was a man I recognized and respected.

This only makes the mercenaries laugh, but it’s the scarred one who answers me. “Three months, give or take,” he says, shrugging.

I chew my lip. I was counting on some gold now. Even if I get enough money to keep us fed all year, that won’t help us if we’ve starved to death before they can bring the money back. “That’s not good enough,” I say finally. “I want your weapons. All of them.”

Both the mercenaries burst out laughing. “Do you even know how to use them?” the scarred mercenary asks when he composes himself enough. “Come on, take the deal. It’s more than you’ll ever get in this sorry excuse for a village.”

“I intend to take the deal, but if this pendant is as valuable as you say, then you should have no trouble with giving me what I ask for,” I say. “If you won’t give you all of your weapons, then at least give me a bow and a quiver of arrows. I’ve been hunting for the past five years. I can manage.” I feel my chin jut out stubbornly.

A look passes between the two mercenaries. “Alright,” rasps the short-haired woman. She climbs back into the caravan and I can hear her rummaging through piles of things. She comes back with an elegantly carved long bow and two quivers of arrows. She thrusts them at me, and I am just about to take them from her when I see another quiver in the gloom of the caravan.

“What are those?” I say, standing on my toes to try and see around the mercenaries’ bulk.

“What do you want with ash arrows, girlie? You planning on crossing the Wall and skewering yourself some faeries?” the scarred mercenary says. His voice is light, but there’s something about the look on his face that says he’s not nearly as unaffected as he’s trying to appear.

I can’t explain it, but I want one of those arrows. I have to have one of those arrows.

“No deal unless you give me one of those ash arrows as well,” I say, taking the bow and the quivers from the woman.

She shakes her head and her dark hair touches her ears. The mercenary disappears into the back of the caravan, even after her companion tries to stop her. I sling the quivers over my shoulders and keep my chin high. I’m going to get the most out of this deal. I have to.

The woman crouches over and I can hear the wood sliding against wood as she draws an arrow. She turns slowly, then steps over to me. She looks into my eyes. “Pray that you never need this. You don’t want to tangle with anything from over that Wall. Nothing good comes from Prythian.”

I nod. I have no desire to ever go any further into the woods than anyone else does. I promised my mother that I would keep my family safe. Getting myself killed won’t keep them safe. I take the ash arrow from her grip. It’s heavier than it looks, and the point is deadly sharp.

The scarred mercenary is looking uneasier by the minute. He makes a circular motion with his forefinger, and the woman swats at the air. She shakes him off when he grabs her elbow. “I’ll send word to the Hales when we’re on our way back from the city in the fall. You know them, little Archeron?” he asks quickly over his shoulder as he removes the stops from the caravan’s wheels and throws them into the back.

I scarcely have the time to say that yes, I did when they’re on their way, taking my mother’s pendant and the last possession my family had with them.

~*~

                It’s already late and it’s almost dark, but I can’t show up to the cottage empty-handed. I’ve checked my snares again, and there’s still nothing. If I didn’t know any better, I would think that someone had snapped the lines and taken the game for themselves. But the brush isn’t really disturbed and I don’t see any tracks.

                Gods, what I wouldn’t give to come upon a warren of rabbits. A squirrel, even.

                The woods are silent. If I had more light, I would start looking for wild mushrooms and onions. Maybe if I find a few, I can convince Elain to plant them with her flowers.

                Maybe I can convince her to leave her perfect dreamland and help me. Maybe I can convince Nesta to stop fighting me and pining after Tomas Mandray and to do things when I ask. Maybe my father will get up from his chair and go out and find a job in town. Maybe those boats will unsink themselves.

                I settle myself against an old oak tree. This is the furthest that the other hunters ever dare go. This is the furthest that I will ever allow myself to go, if only because of my deathbed promise to my mother.

                I am alone. I am starving. I avoid mirrors now because I know who I am, and I know who I was.

                I just can’t help but hope that this isn’t all that I was ever meant to be: a starving human girl trying to keep three dead weights alive.

                So I close my eyes and I let myself dream, just as the Bear Guardian winks into view. If I had the money and the talent and the time, I would paint that sky. I don’t know what I’d call it, but just the thought is comforting.

                I only need to keep Nesta and Elain alive long enough to get them married off. Then it would just be me and my father, and I know that I can manage to keep the two of us alive without trouble. Just a few more months, and then we’ll have a little cash to get us through the winter.

                We’ll make it. We will.

                We have to.

The moon is full and high in the sky by the time I decide to make my way back home. If I looked, I could see my reflection by the light of the moon in the stream. I don’t look. I let myself pass my reflection, leaving behind the scared little girl. I’m a hunter now.

                As I turn away from the woods, I swear that I can feel a pair of eyes watching me. I shiver, but I let them.

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically the second in a series, but it really doesn't need to be read in order. They're one-shots, but they're all related. Ish.
> 
> Title comes from Gabrielle Aplin's "Night Bus."


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